db design question

[sbutting]

i have a question concerning db design.

i want to be able to display a user's status in different languages.

my first draft of the affected part of the db's structure looks like this:


user
------
id
user_status_id [foreign key: user_status.id]
...


language
-------------
id
name [varchar(255)]


user_status
-----------------
id


user_status_text
------------------------
user_status_id [foreign key: user_status.id]
language_id [foreign key: language.id]
name [varchar(255)]


a colleague suggested that i should simply drop the table user_status, as it introduces redundancy into my design. my first reply was: "ok, but what if i need extra fields in that table?". i am not sure whether or not i will need them, but let us suppose i don't. to me, my solution looks aestheticaly and logically more appealing ...

my question: how would YOU do it? are there any good reasons for or against my insisting on having that extra table, even if i won't add any attributes?


thanks in advance,
sean

 

[TonyGroves]

Is user_status.id a status code which can be referenced by any number of user records? If that is the case, and you want to limit the value of user_status_id to a certain set of codes, then that table would be essential. Otherwise, if there is no need for referential integrity, then the table would be redundant.